Hard

I like what Morgan Dix says here. I am not endorsing him or any of his programs.

"...Meditation is hard. There’s no easy way around it. Sure, there are a million simple techniques to help you drop the drama in your head. Some of them are incredibly effective. They can genuinely help you calm your mind. You can also have beginners luck and experience your mind going completely silent. That’s pure magic. But for most of us, those experiences aren’t the norm or they come and go. For many of us, it’s challenging to just start a meditation practice, much less stay the course and practice every day.

Do you need to practice in a cave to meditate in earnest? No, you just need to be realistic. Meditation takes a lot of work, but the rewards that come with a committed practice are huge… this is something you really need to discover for yourself… holding steady through the ups and downs of a consistent meditation practice can be a real ordeal. Sometimes, you just don’t know if you are making progress. The moments of peace can be few and far between… it’s easy to start wondering, “what’s the purpose of all this sitting?... why is meditation so damn hard?”… looking back, I can tell you it was totally worth it. (And it still is!)… On the other side of that ordeal, there are big results. So why is it that meditation is so hard sometimes and what can you do about it?

I don’t want to dissuade you from starting a meditation practice. On the contrary. But I have noticed that few are talking about how hard it can be. And to be successful in meditation, you have to be ready for the challenge. And you need to manage your expectations. That way, you won’t get disheartened when your practice doesn’t appear to be delivering the goods. In fact, understanding why meditation is hard can help you to make progress. It’s not sexy, but identifying some of the challenging parts of the practice can help you navigate your inevitable frustrations on the path. Meditation is hard for most people, but not everyone. If meditation is easy for you, that’s totally great… keep doing what you’re doing. But for the rest of us, it’s worth taking a closer look.

1. You have resistance to letting go. Meditation can test you in interesting ways. For example… you sit down and all the energy and motivation drains out of you. That doesn’t tend to happen in other arenas of life in quite the same way. Don’t worry, because you should expect that sometimes. For me, that was a normal event for a long time. The truth is, we all have a deep resistance to meditation. Let’s be honest, when you start meditating, there isn’t a lot in you that wants to let everything go. We are all deeply invested in our minds and our thoughts. And it’s important to understand that our thoughts are mostly fueled by our fears and desires. Real meditation requires you let all that go… You see, each of us is fiercely committed to our own internal worlds. However, meditation eventually helps you to see that there is more to life beyond what you already think and know. It helps you let all that go and discover a limitless space within that is untouched by time, trauma, and the trials of the world. That space is forever at peace and always already free.

2. Resistance can take many forms. You face real and embedded forces of resistance within you. And those inner forces are the real challenge before you. When you try to harness a higher impulse to start (or sustain) your meditation practice or your next artistic work, there is often an equal and opposing energy within you. The important thing is to notice the relationship between your desire to meditate and how easy it is to let other things become more important… that’s your resistance talking. And it’s pretty crafty. Meditation requires a particular muscle you aren’t used to flexing. It takes consistent work over time to be fruitful. When you do it, you have to bring your whole self to it. There is no half-measure with meditation. When you sit down and start, it’s all or nothing.

3. Did you know that your mind has it’s own momentum? And did you know that practicing meditation is going in the opposite direction of that momentum?... First, there is the personal momentum of all your own thoughts. Those are the thought patterns shaped by your own personal experience. And then there is the momentum of your cultural mind, which is hundreds (if not thousands) of years old, and informed by all the thoughts and values of your people, your tribe, and everything that has happened to them over the ages. Finally there is your historical mind, which has the momentum of all human thought and experience embedded within it. That’s a huge river and some deep patterns!... But here’s the problem. You think you are the river. Meditation helps you discover that you are not that rushing river of thought. You are something much more. Something that can’t be defined by thought alone.

4. Through our conscious and sub-conscious minds, we mostly know what we want and don’t want…“I want to meditate.” That comes from your conscious mind… But there are other parts of you and me that are unconscious… deeper drives… these are not in our control… there will always be aspects of our development that we can’t control. Most likely, this holds true for our meditation practice too. It seems probable that there are unconscious forces in you and me that are at odds with the vulnerability, letting go, and transparency of meditation. It might help to explain why meditation can be hard sometimes and to give it space.

5. You don’t know what you don’t know. It’s humbling to contemplate. In meditation, you are endeavoring to let go of the world and everything in it… You are a sensitive, evolving creature living in the midst of unprecedented change, dizzying stimulus, and mounting responsibility. At any given moment there are countless influencers, inner and outer, gross and subtle, affecting the quality of your awareness and motivation… There is something freeing in not having to know all the time…You’re letting everything be exactly as it is… you stop fighting reality, let go, and make space in yourself. You can never really anticipate what’s going to happen in life and it’s the same in meditation. You don’t know what you don’t know and there is nothing you can do about it… A lot of it is a mystery.

6. Meditation promises a lot… the ugly truth. There is nothing in it for you. You don’t get anything from meditation. On the contrary, eventually you give up everything. Every desire, every hope, every fantasy, everything you cherish…it all has to go… including that peace and stillness you cherish. True meditation requires you to let go of every inch of progress you think you’ve made… every blissful experience of peace. Is this a cruel trick of the universe or am I just the worst salesperson for meditation ever? Well, I’m not sure, but it’s only when we let it all go that we can develop the kind of confidence and poise that meditation promises. Abiding peace comes with the unshakeable knowledge that we are not what we think, we are infinitely more than that. Dedicated practice is the only thing I know of that can give you that.

So there it is. Meditation is hard… Meditation is an incredible practice. But it puts you up against some large forces that you aren’t in the habit of contending with. So it makes sense that you don’t just waltz your way into the sunset and get enlightened on your first few tries. But that’s no reason to give up… usually that effort pays off big time…If you are consistent, over time you’ll carve a canyon of inner peace. And then you’ll look back and you’ll wonder how it happened. So what next? Well, that’s easy…go meditate!”

~ Morgan Dix is a writer, educator, and cofounder of About Meditation who explores the intersection of meditation and culture through articles, eBooks, courses, and OneMind Meditation Podcast. Morgan has learned from and studied with a variety of teachers, and cites Gary Snyder, Chagdud Tulku, Paramahansa Yogananda, Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Chimnoy, and Andrew Cohen as important influences.